


The Way It Should Be

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: "The most important thing to remember is that he didn't intend for this to happen, he didn't set out with a grand plan (there are some folks who would intimate that he never actually made plans but they would be wrong (mostly))."





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is another one I wrote way back at the beginning where I was still finding my style, which I had just barely started to do with this one. If you've read enough of my stuff, I think you'll see that.

The most important thing to remember is that he didn't intend for this to happen, he didn't set out with a grand plan (there are some folks who would intimate that he never actually made plans but they would be wrong (mostly)). All he wanted was to run a small store, just a place where children could come to hang out and play and be kids. Really, that's it. He did not, no matter what some people might say, choose this location because Rose Tyler ran a book store around the corner. Of course not. He got over her years ago, years and years and years ago. That was ancient history, back when they were kids and he used to walk her to school and show off his latest inventions and talk about visiting the stars, before everything changed and they argued over stupid things and she dumped him for some up and coming music star. (Said up and coming star subsequently crashed and burned, but not before Rose kicked him to the curb, yes, okay, maybe he still had some friends who kept him up to date on Rose, not that he asked, mind, they just sometimes dropped nuggets of Rose-centric information into the conversation.)

He went through negotiations for the shop and the subsequent ordering of supplies, setting up displays, and stocking the shelves without once seeing Rose. Jack said (and Jack would know because she didn't shut Jack out of her life and didn't that just sting) that she was out of town, something about an International Book Convention, but he wondered if it didn't have more to do with the fact that those same friends probably dropped Doctor-centric nuggets into their conversations with her and she just didn't want to see him. He threw himself into his work, making sure everything was perfect and kid-friendly and interesting, and opening day brought in such a high profit that Donna Noble (and hiring her was probably the least stupid thing he'd done in his entire life) actually joined him for a celebratory drink at the pub and that is where he finally got to see Rose again, because of course it was.

She was perfect as always; blonde and regal and curvy and interesting, and it made him want to hurl his glass against the wall and dance a jig and arm wrestle someone, but he didn't do any of that, mostly because Donna would have strangled him with her bare hands if he had. Instead he gripped his glass with white-knuckled fingers and tried to engage Donna in an animated conversation about Pompeii about which she cared exactly nothing and told him so. He knew the exact moment that Rose saw him and it did nothing positive for his nerves and he was ten seconds away from jumping up and racing out of there, but Donna hauled him to the pool table and he instantly forgot every law of Physics there was because he tripped over his feet and Donna's feet and every bloody table and he absolutely knew that Rose saw the whole thing and wasn't that just fantastic. He lasted precisely twenty minutes before he mumbled some excuse to Donna and then he did run, down the street and the next and the next until he forgot everything that wasn't the blood rushing through his ears and the pounding of his heart.

Days went by because that's what days did, seconds and hours and minutes, ticking by with hardly a care to their suffocating nature. The bright spots were the times when he got to play with the kids who came in to his store, sword fights and experiments and magic tricks. The dark spots were the times he remembered he ran a shop around the corner from Rose Tyler, and why on earth he thought that was a brilliant idea, he would never know. Donna became ridiculously good at reading his moods, sometimes kicking him into gear, sometimes handing him a cup of tea without a word; he thought Jack may have had a word with her after the pub fiasco but he had no real proof. 

It was a Tuesday, which had always struck him as a perfectly ordinary day, and he was on the floor, heels kicked into the air, building the most spectacular Lego castle the world had ever beheld, when a hand tugged his sleeve and he looked up to see a little boy with soft blonde hair and a charming smile ask him if he could play too. Of course he could, every kid could play, and he was recruiting the little fellow to work on the moat when a pair of black boots moved into his field of vision and he followed them up to some shapely calves and, hold up, he knew those calves, has maybe fantasized about those calves. He jerked his gaze all the way up and there she was, looking like a goddess, hair caught by the slant of the afternoon sun, and there he was, prostrated on the floor before her and wasn't that just the story of his life. He was utterly shocked when she sat on the floor and picked up some blocks, fitting them together, and was she nervous? He pushed himself up and mirrored her position, desperately wracking his brain for words that would help make him less of an idiot and coming up surprisingly short.

Rose broke the silence, gesturing around and complimenting him on the decor, and he made a really lame joke that actually garnered him a smile and wasn't that a miracle. They made small talk, or she did, he sat there and tried not to make a complete fool of himself. She laughed a few times, an actual laugh complete with a dart of her tongue, and he was rendered temporarily speechless, blood rushing away from his brain, and oh yeah, this was why he could never form coherent thoughts around her. Eventually she moved, calling to the boy, introducing him as her brother; he'd forgotten that Jackie and Pete Tyler finally remarried. She was halfway to the door and then stopped, asking if he wanted to get chips tomorrow. Did he want to get chips? He wanted to get all the chips that the world had to offer! But he could only nod dumbly at her and the two Tyler's waved goodbye as they left the shop. He stood there for the better part of ten minutes before Donna smacked him upside the head and told him he’d better think of at least three complete sentences to say tomorrow if he planned on winning her back.

When it was just him and Rose, sitting on a stone wall sharing two orders of chips, he regained the ability to form sentences because this was them, a hundred afternoons, a thousand orders of chips. They talked about books and toys and living in the city and very carefully avoided anything that was the past or their personal lives. It was too soon and not soon enough and he desperately tried to avoid thinking of wasted years. He knew that if they continued down this path (and oh how he wanted them to) they'd have to talk about things like ex-boyfriends and one-night stands and why they argued in the first place, but not today, this was one, well, not date exactly, just a meeting of two people that were once friends in a different lifetime. Rose smiled and laughed and when she grabbed his arm to make a point he forgot to breathe for a minute and a half because he could smell her shampoo and it was exactly the same as it always was and it was all he could do not to haul her to him and bury his nose in her hair and this was not the time or the place and it might never be and wasn't that a perfectly depressing thought. She must have picked up on his mood because she shifted away almost immediately and made excuses to go, but he couldn't let her go, not now, not just yet so he asked if she would, maybe, if she wanted, accompany him to the lecture at the planetarium on Saturday? She smiled, a real smile, that one she always reserved for him, and he lost all feeling in his fingers and toes until she grabbed his hand and squeezed it, declaring that she would love to, before spinning around and heading away, leaving him to bound back to his store and tell Donna that he thought up more than three sentences, thanks just the same.

He spent the rest of the week fretting about what to wear and what would happen and avoiding Donna's questions and Jack's suggestive advice and wishing he had a time machine so he could skip the next three days, not to mention avoid his friends. He made a point to pick Rose up early because she had once told him he had no sense of time, which might be true but was beside the point. She looked stunning, dressed casually in jeans and a purple shirt, and his brain shorted out for long moments. She grinned at him, taking his arm and tugging him outside, demanding they walk, and somewhere along the way he kick-started his brain back into action and opened his mouth, rambling about the city and the view and oh look at that sunset Rose! and she laughed out loud, resting her head on his arm for a brilliant moment. When they arrived, he hardly listened to a word the presenter said, entirely too wrapped up in the smell of sunshine and strawberries and warmth that was uniquely Rose because it wasn't that long ago that he never thought he'd get to smell it again and he wasn't sure how much longer she would let him. She whispered to him under cover of darkness, remarking about the stars and how much she still loved them and did he remember that time they snuck out and went stargazing on the hill behind the school? Of course he did, he remembered every moment he spent with this amazing girl, this fantastic woman, in crystal detail, so he just smiled at her, knowing that everything he was feeling was shining in his eyes. Her eyes went wide as they searched his, and then she looked away, staring at the ceiling of stars and he thought he might have messed up already, maybe he should have held back, except she was still holding his hand and that had to count for something right?

Afterwards they made their way to the street and he was quiet because he was waiting for her to say something, anything, he almost didn't care what it was, he just wanted her to put him out of the hell that was threatening to choke him. Rose was walking with a purpose, pulling him along and he followed willingly because of course he did, he would follow her to the ends of the earth if she asked. When he broke out of his thoughts long enough to realize where they were going, his throat closed up and now he couldn't speak for an entirely different reason. They got to the bridge, their bridge she once called it and he liked that, still called it that in his head, and they automatically took the spots they always did, backs against the support, feet pointing towards the drop off, bodies pressed together from shoulder to hip. She finally started talking, eyes trained on the water, telling him a story from the intervening years and then she stopped and he didn't know what to do and then he realized she was waiting for him, so he opened his mouth and told her something that happened to him and he caught a brief glimpse of relief in her eyes when he opened up. They continued on, swapping a story for a story, covering everything from her parent's remarriage to his professional success, from her book shop to his three month affair with the daughter of a French diplomat. As the stories continued they dove deeper, hesitantly she referenced their last date oh so long ago and he stammered as he rejoined with the reasons behind his decision to move halfway across the world straight out of school. He was barely aware of the setting sun, intent on her words, it was she who stood reluctantly, hand tightly clasped in his and they walked back to her flat slowly, still sharing stories, reasons, feelings; he was pretty sure this was the most he'd talked in one stretch for years.

When they got back to her place, he stood awkwardly at the door, waiting as she fumbled with the lock, suddenly shy and tongue-tied. She turned to him finally, eyes thoughtful and regarding, and then she was on her tiptoes, hand clutching his lapels, and, oh god, those were her lips on his and her fingers in his hair and it was all he could do to stay upright, arms going around her and holding her tight and close, fingers brushing her ribs. When they finally broke for air, he was reluctant to let go, disentangling himself slowly, stepping back, and he knew his jaw was slack, knew he ought to say something, but the only thing running through his head was "Rose Tyler kissed me!" She grinned at him full out, a peek of her brilliant tongue, and he was sure she could hear the pounding of his heart. She glanced between him and the open doorway and back again, and for one heart-stopping moment he swore he could feel the exact speed the earth was spinning around the sun, and then she opened her mouth, invited him in, and the ground settled back into place. He grabbed her hand and let her tug him inside because this was the Doctor and Rose Tyler together at last, the way it should be.


End file.
